Don't compare

Not long ago I wrote a post about why we wouldn't be buying a house yet. I still 100% agree with everything I wrote in that post, and yet I must admit that there are times when I look longingly at other peoples' homes and dream of the day when we will own ours. We live in the most darling community. It is only about 10 years old, so pretty much everything is new construction. We are surrounded by brightly painted craftsmen style homes and modern condos. I love taking Luke for walks in the morning and looking at the cute homes, surrounded by neatly trimmed lawns and only blocks away from parks and community gardens.

Only problem? It's easy to start the comparison game.

When we moved into our apartment, just three months ago, we couldn't stop talking about all the features it had that we loved. Our previous two apartments were much older and therefore a bit run down, not to mention small. This complex was built only 3 years ago, so everything still feels new and clean. Plus, it's big. 1200 square feet, 9 foot ceilings in every room, big windows, an open concept kitchen and living room, wrap around balcony. We felt like we were "living the dream" by finding a place as nice as this.

I now am realizing however, how quickly, if you aren't careful, the charm can wear off, especially if you pay too much attention to what other people have.

The fact is, there will always be someone who has nicer things than us. That's just how the world works, and honestly I'm glad its that way. I wouldn't enjoy my morning walks nearly so much if every house on the street was the same.  Many of the reasons we fell in love with this apartment had to do with the fact that is was different than everywhere we had lived before.

So how do you keep from trying to keep up with the Joneses?

1. Count your blessings. That may sound cliche but its true. When I stop and think about all that we do have right now, I think a lot less about all that we don't have. 
2. Find like-minded friends. "Friends" doesn't have to actually mean people you hang out with (although that's important too). A few of my "friends" that help me keep things in perspective include: bloggers who live a similar lifestyle, books that inspire me, Pinterest boards with decorating ideas for our space, and Dave Ramsey (I know, nerd.)
3. Clean up. I have found that it is more easy to become discontented when our apartment is messy. When I take just a few minutes to clean things up, I see all the charm again that I loved in the beginning. Using a space well will always make you appreciate it more.

I am lucky to live such a good and happy life; I think most of us are. We just have to remember that, and most of all, don't compare.

Why we aren't going to buy a house...yet

Lately we have been asked a lot if and when we are going to buy a house. This questions almost always immediately arises after we tell people that we are living in an apartment. We never got this question in any of our previous apartment homes, but I guess now that Phil is done with school and has a "real" job, apartment living is not considered very cool.

I get it. Owning your own home is part of the American dream. It's a step into adulthood and responsibility. We want to own our own home one day too. But, we have decided that it's going to be a while before that happens. Here's why:

1. We already have a ton of debt. There is no reason to take on more debt when we are trying so hard to get rid of the debt we already have. If we can achieve our goal of paying off our student loans in 5 (or less) years we will start looking to buy a house around that time. 
2. We don't want the extra expenses. Sure, renting can be a hassle at times. You don't get to paint the walls or remodel the way you want. You have other people living literally all around you. You usually don't have a yard. But owning a home can mean a lot of extra expenses that you don't have when renting. There are HOA fees, property taxes, maintenance, and insurance to pay for and those things add up fast. 
3. We don't need or want the extra space. Yes, you read that correctly. We are Americans who don't want an enormous home. Why? Because then we have to furnish that enormous home. Having a smaller space helps us avoid the desire to get more things, which inevitably costs more money. We like to live a simple, minimalistic lifestyle, and we hope that our home and possessions reflect that. Obviously, not all homes are big, so we could buy something small and upgrade later, but that just doesn't make sense to me. It's fairly easy to move into a bigger apartment when you run out of room; it's not always so easy to sell and move out of a smaller home into a bigger home whenever you want. 
4. We like apartment living. I know that sounds crazy to a lot of people, but for us apartment living works at this stage in our lives. We like having someone else do the maintenance. We like the amenities such as a swimming pool, fitness center, and playground. And despite arguments that renting is just throwing away your money, we don't mind paying the monthly rent. The way I see it, paying rent isn't all that different than putting gas in your car. You fill up at the beginning of the month and drive your car everywhere you need to go. Once the tank is empty you don't think, "well that was sure a waste of money", because it wasn't. The money you spent on gas provided you the means to get where you needed to go, just as paying rent each month provides us with a roof over our heads and a nice place to call home. It is money well spent. 

We do want to own our own house one day, and we will. But for now, we are happy to call our apartment home. 

Money matters

I've been thinking about money a lot lately.  Phil and I have a pretty tight budget and have been lucky enough to be able to put money in our savings and in our Roth IRA's over the past year and a half (we aren't counting on Social Security when we retire).  However, to our surprise, I found out a couple of weeks ago that I would NOT be receiving a grant this summer for school.  They used to allow students to receive grants year round (fall, spring and summer semesters; I got a grant last summer) but as of this year that has all changed.  So instead of having over half of my tuition paid for, we have to pay for it all out of pocket.  The thing that makes it even more frustrating is that I could have really graduated in May instead of stretching it out and taking some classes this summer before finishing.  The reason I did that was because I thought I was going to get the grant, so instead of doing two semesters of 18 credits each and getting $5100 in grants, the plan was to take three semesters of 12 credits each and get $7650 in grants.  Same amount of classes, more grant money, less money out of pocket.  We thought we had a great plan.  Too bad the U doesn't inform its students when they suddenly decide to take summer grant money away. 

Phil reminded me that at least we have the money to pay for my tuition this semester and we don't have to get loans or anything.  He's right, and I'm grateful for that, but sad for the dent that it puts in our carefully saved nest egg. Not to mention that I'm a little nervous about how it will be when we move because I will be the full-time bread winner instead of Phil while he is going to school.  Thunderbird is, to say the least, very expensive. We will have to get loans to pay for all of Phil's tuition, but I refuse to use any loan money for general living expenses, so I have to find a job that will at least pay for the necessities.

So, lately I have been listening to the Dave Ramsey Show; if you haven't heard of him he is the author of The Total Money Makeover, a book we received when we were married and that offers, truly, great advice on money management.  One thing Dave talks about is having "gazelle-like intensity" when working to pay off debt, and "live like no one else, so you can live like no one else".  The idea behind that is of course that we should save our money like crazy and avoid debt at all costs until we are completely debt free and wealthy and then we can do whatever we want with our money and have a great time. Unfortunately that requires not spending money on frivolous things like going out to dinner, going on vacation, buying anything we don't need, etc. With all this in mind, I have been thinking of any way we might be able to save more money, starting with cuts on our grocery list to make it less expensive.  Yesterday I started looking up bean and rice recipes that we can live on instead of eating meat or a lot of produce.  I even started thinking about making cloth napkins so that we wouldn't spend money buying regular paper napkins... So, I may be getting a little extreme, but I really do want to cut down on expenses and hopefully we can.  Beans and rice here we come!